Counted establishments with payroll (2023 (released May 2025)) — excludes no-payroll businesses, which are rarely sellable. Rank = employer businesses among the 69 US markets covered here.
Defaults are national benchmarks (cited above each input). Change any of the four to your own figures — every result below re-derives live. This is the model, not measured local data.
Business counts are real establishment counts for this market by NAICS sector — US Census County Business Patterns 2023, 2023 (released May 2025). Competition is a directional judgment, not a measurement. Tap a niche to set your focus.
IBBA Market Pulse: the median Main Street broker closes 4–6 deals/yr (27–38% close rate, 6–12-month cycle); a first-year broker typically lands below that. Revenue = deals × $48,000. Break-even assumes ~$1.5K/mo running costs. Set your own deal count below.
Chain: 249K businesses ÷ 8.4M US total = 2.97% × the ~10–15K active US brokers (IBBA has <3,000 members; total population estimated 10–15K) ≈ 297–446 brokers. No public per-city broker registry exists — verify by counting the Chicago listings in the BizBuySell broker directory.
- Search demand: check “business broker chicago” in Google Keyword Planner (free with a Google Ads account) — real volume and CPC for your market.
- Broker competition: count the Chicago brokers listed in the BizBuySell broker directory and the IBBA member directory.
- Live deal flow: count active Chicago listings on BizBuySell — the clearest single signal of a working market.
We don't publish numbers for these because no honest source exists at metro level — anyone showing you exact “keyword difficulty” or “cost per lead” for your city is guessing.